Writer | Editor

The Walking Dead Part II Recap: After

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM…YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK…

The mid-season premiere of The Walking Deadbrought us back to the prison after the Governor’s attack caused the group to spread out in several different directions. Because everyone is so spread out, we didn’t reunite with all of the characters. So unfortunately, we still don’t know the fate of everyone on Team Prison, but we did catch up with a few of them. This episode focused on Rick, Carl and Michonne, and it was pretty intense.

If there was one central theme to the episode, it would have to be about what it means to truly live and survive after the zombie apocalypse. Michonne, Carl, and even Rick start to work through what life has to look like in a world infested with walkers. Before meeting Andrea, Michonne’s survival technique was to go it alone, to not feel, and not get attached to anyone or any place. For her, she was winning as long as she was breathing. Rick, on the other hand, had a completely different philosophy. He desperately tried to cling to any sort of normalcy in his life. He would raise Carl in the way any regular parent would, walkers or not, and he still tried to cling to rules and social norms that were becoming more and more irrelevant. His insistence on clinging to any sort of life that looked like “the way things used to be” is especially important to him as Carl seems to be growing up hardened and cold in response to the chaos around him. This episode forced Carl, Rick, and Michonne to take a closer look at the life they are building and ultimately restructure their priorities…